VCCircle

Providence Equity Partners, a leading global private equity fund, has set up its Asia offices in Hong Kong and New Delhi. Providence specialises in media, entertainment, communications and information companies. The Asian operations of the fund will be led by Andrew Rickards, who will work out of Hong Kong as a managing director. Rickards is currently CEO of N.M. Rothschild & Sons in Asia and former co-head of Communications, Media & Entertainment (CME) Asia Pacific for Goldman Sachs.

The New Delhi office will be headed by Biswajit Subramanian, a Managing Director of Providence Equity in London. He joined the firm in 2000, and has been involved in the fund's investments in telephone networks, cable television systems, programming content and wireless, among other industry segments, a release said. He had led the recent investment of Providence in Idea Cellular. He serves on the board of the AV Birla group owned company.

Prior to Providence, Subramanian was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley & Co. in London, where he was part of the European telecommunications investment banking team. He has also worked at Credit Suisse First Boston, McKinsey & Co. and Intel Corporation.